Croton100: Grassroots Climate Action in 2025 and Plans for 2026
By: Patty L. Buchanan
Introduction
As we close out 2025, and turn our attention to planning for 2026, it’s time to highlight some of Croton100’s achievements in 2025. As a founding and flagship chapter of CURE100 (Communities United to Reduce Emissions 100%), we celebrate our team of board directors, volunteers, supporters, thought leaders and donors. They have helped to advance our mission to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Croton urgently and with high priority, and to inspire climate advocates who are interested in leading community action to achieve economy-wide decarbonization in the face of global and national headwinds.
In 2025, severe weather induced events including fires, heat waves, floods, mudslides, hurricanes and typhons took the lives of too many innocent people around the world. The mounting harms are apparent everywhere. Right here in Croton, we are witnessing sea-level rise necessitating projects like the raising of the road near Annsville Circle, flooding in the Train Station parking lot and Metro-North rail lines, infestations like spotted lantern flies and unprecedentedly warm winters on average. Scientists have continued to document with an ever-sharper pencil that fossil fuel GHG emissions are causing planetary warming, which is unleashing severe weather events with destructive impacts that are precisely measured by attribution science. In this soul-crushing year, the Trump administration has mocked science and scientists, defunded and decimated world-class climate science institutions and information platforms, invigorated climate denial on the world stage, sabotaged the clean energy industry, dismantled environmental legal protections, rescinded federal funding support for clean energy solutions and orchestrated national resources to unleash perilous fossil fuels in every way imaginable.
Reckoning with these circumstances is depressing and hard. And yet, we at Croton100 have not put our heads in the sand. We have persevered to meet the needs of our times with resilience, creativity, and collaboration. We have used our platforms to speak out about the truth of the harms of fossil fuels and benefits of clean energy solutions that are available, reliable, efficient, necessary, urgent, and inevitable. We have demonstrated the critical importance of local action.
Summary
Throughout 2025, Croton100 has responded to harms induced by fossil fuels with steadfast adherence to climate-science truth-telling through education and advocacy. We have strategically positioned Croton100 to have a strong leadership role in 2026 by communicating through a multitude of informational and artistic mediums to expand our reach in boundless time and place.
Our 2025 activities included:
- Growing our unique Climate Action Quilt series that spotlights adoption of decarbonizing solutions by local government, businesses, public facilities, and households.
- Building greater impact of the Climate Action Quilt series by launching the production of a short documentary film that tells the story of Croton’s New York State-wide Clean Energy Community leadership and Croton100’s Quilt series.
- Promoting our work through our website, social media, CURE100 newsletters, and blogs.
- Participating in community events like Earth Day and promoting Electric Vehicles (EVs) at Rotary’s Annual Car Show.
- Supporting policy efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels.
- Providing opportunities for folks who want to adopt and advocate for solutions by volunteering in a local climate action group and helping Croton100 to further its mission.
- Providing free individual Home Energy Coaching to guide people who are interested in changing their heating/cooling systems to electric heat pumps, improving energy efficiency with insulation, and considering rooftop solar and other ways to access renewably sourced electricity supply.
- Pursuing professional, vocational, personal education and development, apart from Croton100 activities, through participation in climate conferences, webinars, research, and publications.
These actions are more than a list of standalone activities; they are interconnected by collaborative events and relationships. They were accomplished by hands-on volunteers and supporters in Croton and beyond. Croton100 does not have any paid staff. Our work is made possible by generous donors who provide support for our activities, branding materials and organizational infrastructure, including insurance and digital tool fees.
A Closer Look
Climate Action Quilt Series
In 2025 we built upon last year’s success when we unveiled our first unique community engagement work of art: Croton100’s Climate Action Quilt that was first exhibited at the 2024 Croton Earth Day Celebration. Experiencing the positive impact of our first Quilt led us to begin work on a second Quilt in the Fall of 2024, which we unveiled on Earth Day 2025. These months-long activities involved a dozen sets of helping hands, including skilled Quilt Crafter Audrey Supple, who led the design and creation of Croton100’s second Quilt, which measures 6½’ wide by 5½’ high.
The central panel on this second 2025 Quilt features a large fabric appliqué illustration of New York State’s largest municipal solar project, which is a 4.22 MW solar canopy and 3.5 MW battery power system spanning ~10 acres, covering ~1,100 parking spaces rising above the Croton Harmon train station parking lot. The solar project will also include 18 port EV chargers (with free charging for parking permit holders for the first 24 months following charger installation). This solar/
battery project is a contributing factor for the Village of Croton-on-Hudson being recognized as the Leading Clean Energy Community in New York State. The central panel on the Quilt is surrounded by 100 icons depicting household decarbonizing actions by households listed on the Quilt (some of which benefited from our free energy coaching advice) and two local sustainability-themed businesses.
Because this Climate Action Quilt provides unique and extraordinary community engagement, education, and advocacy, Croton100 is growing this momentum by crafting its third Quilt, which it initiated in the Fall of 2025. We expect to unveil this third Quilt in early 2026. We are thrilled that Quilt Crafter Audrey Supple is once again leading this effort, with significant project support from other Croton100 supporters and local business Leatherwood Design Studio, with many thanks to Debbie Cronin. We expect the Quilt will illustrate decarbonizing solutions adopted by the Croton Harmon School District, four public/private partnerships, along with 30-plus households with over 100 decarbonizing actions.
The quilt graphically and imaginatively depicts climate progress in our community and is a great conversation-maker in public events. In keeping with CURE100’s mission, our ongoing Quilt project is designed to be able to grow in Croton as our adoption of decarbonizing solutions expands, and for this project to be replicated by other groups and communities. More information about this Quilt project is in the campaigns tab on Croton100’s website.
Short Documentary Film: The Little Town That Could
In collaboration with our umbrella organization CURE100, Croton100 is broadening its educational and advocacy reach by collaborating on a ~15-minute documentary film entitled, The Little Town That Could. Planning for this project began in the Spring of 2025, production commenced in October 2025, we expect to release The Little Town That Could in Earth Month (April) 2026. This short doc’s ensemble cast will tell the inspiring story of Croton’s decarbonizing action across the four pillars of community: (1) municipal government; (2) public facilities; (3) businesses; and (4) households. Little Town will showcase
some of the municipal government’s initiatives that have earned its place as the #1 Clean Energy Community in New York State, alongside the many ways Crotonites are doing their part to decarbonize and bring impact multiplier contributions to the clean energy transition and sustainable systems. The Little Town That Could will feature the creation of Croton100’s third Quilt in Leatherwood Design Studio as it threads together the decarbonizing initiatives by the four pillars of community, representing a tapestry of this community’s climate actions.
Croton100 is delighted to have Archipelago Films, with their world-class, award-winning, documentary filmmakers, producing The Little Town That Could. We will work with Archipelago Films to submit this short doc to film festivals in 2026, and beyond, paving a path for other towns and villages to emulate Croton’s success. In thesummer of 2025, we researched music possibilities to accompany this film. We are pleased that The Little Town That Could will be
boosted by a gripping Americana soundtrack featuring The New Students. Croton100 and CURE100 are grateful to the New Students for donating their musical track “Greta’s Song” for use in this film.
The coming together of these three art forms — quilting, film, and music — provide compelling experiential ways to communicate adoption of alternatives to GHG emissions by bringing visibility to Croton’s community-based success. In these times that are fraught with overwhelming, complex, large-scale destruction of our planetary eco-systems and denigration of people who protect them, Croton100’s initiatives draw on climate stability actions rooted in shared care for our Common Home at the community level, while using artistic creativity to express the change we want to see in the world. The Little Town That Could brings to life our motto: success is an impact multiplier.
Honors in Albany by Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg
With our gratitude to Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg, Croton100 had the extraordinary honor of being recognized in the New York State Assembly Chamber, in conjunction with an Exhibit of our Climate Action Quilts in the Concourse of the State Legislative Office Building in April 2025.
Croton100 volunteers Chandu Visweswariah and Patty Buchanan with Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg in Assembly Chamber and at Quilt Exhibit, Albany Legislative Office Building, April 2025
Support from Pete Harckham
We are grateful to have collaborated with CURE100 in receiving a $25,000 award from NYS Senator Pete Harckham to support our educational programming. We are working with the NYS Education Department, the administrator of this grant, to apply this funding to support Croton100’s production of The Little Town That Could.
Croton100's Community Participation
Croton100 participated in several community-wide events throughout the year, including the Earth Day festival, where we displayed Climate Action Quilts and hosted a smash and bash of a fossil fuel piñata.
Croton100 continued its tradition of participating in Croton Rotary’s Annual Auto Show by organizing an Electric Vehicle Corral. This year’s participants spanned the four community pillars including two vehicles from the Police Department (a Ford F-150 Lightening pick-up truck and an e-Mustang
patrol cruiser), a business owned e-Van (by Franzoso Contracting), micro e-mobility by Croton Electric Bikes and Project Mover, along with one of Croton’s several electric school buses, and a variety of personal EVs.
This year’s “Exceptional EV” trophy was awarded to an e-Track Chair (brought by Westchester Parks Foundation and SOAR (Specialized Outdoor Adaptive Recreation)). Croton100 is especially pleased to participate in this annual Rotary event because its timing aligns with our mission to promote EVs during National Drive Electric Month.
Throughout 2025, Croton100 served as a resource for residents who had questions about electric vehicles, decarbonizing home energy systems, and renewable electricity.
Collaboration with CURE100 and Other Organizations
In furtherance of Croton100’s goal to expand carbon literacy, Croton100 made significant contributions to CURE100’s Carbon Tracker to broaden its functionality to include instantaneous read-out of household-level carbon emissions, greater accuracy in accounting for emissions in the methane gas supply chain, and other insights attendant to adoption of decarbonizing measures. The Carbon Tracker now provides personalized “expert” advice on how to decarbonize. Additionally, among other things, Croton100 participated in:
- An annual retreat of the NYS Chapters Coalition of the Climate Reality Project in Olivebridge, NY.
- The Ossining Earth Day Festival.
- Public Hearing about The Town of Cortlandt Curbside Compost Pilot Proposal.
- Paint for Peace: creation of a Global Peace Flag in collaboration with Berkeley College.
- Public Hearing on Croton’s Resolution opposing pipeline-fossil fuel infrastructure expansion.
- Meetings of the Croton Business Council and the newly launched Association of Croton Businesses.
- Exhibit of second Climate Action Quilt at the Croton River Artisans Gallery.
- Attendance at the New York City Climate Film Festival.
- Show & Tell of Climate Action Quilt in kids’ educational program at Unitarian Universalists Congregation of the Hudson Valley in Croton.
- Attendance at the ACE-NY annual clean energy conference in Albany.
Communications
contributions to CURE100’s Blogs with analysis and insights about developments in climate change and clean energy solutions regionally and globally.
We strive to communicate about the connections between increased global temperatures, harms to people and the natural world, local emissions, and the impacts of these harms here in Croton. For example, in the summer of 2025, colossal wildfires burned in Canada emitting GHG and making forests carbon-positive, creating plumes of toxic PM2.5 laden smoke that were carried by jet streams across North America and beyond, reaching Croton! We posted about air quality health risks from these fires on Croton100’s social media (with thanks to information from the Village of Croton’s Municipal “Purple Air Sensor” app!).
Leadership Education and Vocational Advocacy
Croton100 leaders and volunteers participate in climate action activities in their other personal/vocational/professional roles, in addition to their volunteer efforts with Croton100. Throughout the year Croton100 leaders and volunteers participated in a variety of climate conferences, webinars, and research, that have deepened their knowledge about the climate crisis, its solutions, and advocacy opportunities in the broader climate action network. Their expertise developed through these activities contributes to Croton100’s climate action expertise that helps to further its mission.
In every way, Croton100 lived up to the “100” in its name – targeting 100% of society, to reduce 100% of GHG emissions, tackled with 100% of our effort!
Remarkably, all of these Croton100 activities were accomplished by a 100% volunteer organization!
2026 Goals
In the coming year we hope to:
- Build on the experience and momentum to advance Croton100’s mission in 2026 to reduce GHG emissions in Croton to net zero urgently and with high priority through a combination of advocacy, education, and campaigns.
- Complete and unveil our third Climate Action Quilt that illustrates clean energy solutions adopted in Croton across the four pillars of community.
- Exhibit our Quilts wherever and whenever possible, providing fun opportunities to learn and network in a variety of settings to advance education and advocacy about clean energy solutions and sustainable practices that are available, reliable, efficient, urgent, necessary, and inevitable.
- Release and promote our short documentary film, The Little Town That Could to inspire other people and communities to adopt decarbonizing solutions.
- Engage in similar Croton community events as we have in past years and engage in campaigns to encourage EVs, solar panels, heat pumps, etc.
- Continue to engage with the Croton100 network of volunteers, supporters, donors, and welcome others to meet us and join us.
- Continue to provide energy coaching to residents.
- Serve as a flagship chapter of CURE100 that is worthy of emulation by other chapters.
- Raise $50,000+ to support an impact campaign for the Little Town That Could.
We expect to face significant hurdles in 2026 due to national policies that are bolstering the fossil fuel industry, while sabotaging decarbonizing solutions and denigrating people who advocate for them. We also anticipate resistance in public engagement due to acrimony in the political atmosphere and news-cycle-fatigue. We are, nevertheless, hopeful that we can have a significant impact in Croton and beyond due to supportive New York State and local policies, our strong network of partners, and our unique artistic projects that educate, entertain, and inspire. We hope that our track record will help to attract volunteers, supporters, and donors to achieve our 2026 goals. We will do our utmost to make contributions towards “bending the carbon curve.”
This is an opinion and analysis article. The views expressed by the author are solely her own and not those of any organization she is affiliated with or CURE100.
